Award-winning novelist Marc Acito and Grammy nominee Amy Engelhardt have teamed up to create a new musical adaptation of the 1963 film Tom Jones.
The new work aims to highlight the plight of minorities discriminated against just because of who they are: gay, female, trans, black — all could be substituted for “bastard” in the not-so-distant past.
Check it out here — and do so knowing that all proceeds will go to Cyndi Lauper's nonprofit True Colors Fund, dedicated to ending LGBTQ homelessness.
Zeta-Jones is so, so terrible in this trailer, but I guess I'll have to watch Feud. Full trailer ABOVE. NEW SARANDON Q&A: Let's stop blaming people for Trump?!
Celebs sign letter to Texas legislature decrying that state's anti-trans bathroom bill: Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper, Sia, dozens more.
And now, for a little good news: Cyndi Lauper and Blondie are teaming up to tour Australia, and sat for a (very early) interview to chat about their friendship and their musical history ...
(10 images in above gallery by Matthew Rettenmund)
I've seen Cyndi Lauper perform live probably a dozen (?) times, going back to her True Colors World Tour in (December 14, 1986) and including the Twelve Deadly Cyns World Tour (in NYC sometime in 1994-1995), She's So Unusual: 30th Anniversary Tour (October 20, 2013), her opening slot for Cher (May 9, 2014) and quite a few of her holiday and fundraising gigs (like this one). She's great, but I wondered if I really needed to see her yet again, as I did at the Beacon Theatre here in NYC on Thursday night.
My room, 1987. (L) Full Madonna-cover mags in bags on the wall, plus Eurythmics, Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor, Cyndi Lauper. (R) View of my ceiling, with Madonna, Molly Ringwald, Marilyn, Cyndi, Ally Sheedy, Debbie Harry, Sade and ... Boy George! (Images by Matthew Rettenmund)
The real draw for me was Boy George. I absolutely loved Culture Club as a teen; I vividly recall the day I bought Colour by Numbers at a record store in Flint in the '80s. I even had a promo poster for one of the group's video collections on my ceiling, with a huge image of George in full makeup. I also remember the very first time my pals Mike Ashton (at his house) and Eric Olson watched the video for “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” (1982) on MTV and openly discussed the novelty of the dude who totally looked like a girl. Liking George was somewhat of a political statement in a small town—in any town, really.
But even without the tantalizing gayness, I thought Culture Club created two amazing albums (and the other not-half-bad ones), records I listened to and memorized. I was a pretty fair voice mimic for George, too.
Back in the day, Culture Club had a bad reputation as a live act, and I didn't summon the guts to attend any pop tour until Eurythmics' Revenge Tour on August 21, 1986, by which time Culture Club was kaput. Also, I'd heard more recently that George didn't sound so hot on a reunion jaunt, but I believe that was due to vocal issues.
So when I failed to get tickets and the joint gig between Cyndi and George (with Rosie O'Donnell as a special guest) neared, I reached out to a friend with a connection and, after his previous invitees fell through, I found myself seated in the fourth row for what turned out to be a thoroughly satisfying show.
You better pink! (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Cyndi came out first, weirdly; I'd expected George would open for her, considering her relative success and being 3/4 of the way to being an EGOT. She looked great in her pink hair and punky leather get-up, and thanked us all for being there while also ensuring she educated the young'uns about the days when R&B and country were quite close in form. This was relevant because she's recently released a C&W album, Detour. Her roots with Blue Angel make this a good idea:
As reluctant as I was to see her again (at some point, seeing an artist over and over can almost dull my enthusiasm), and as little interest as I had in hearing her do country stuff, her set wound up being phenomenal. She had us on our feet the whole time and was in superb voice.
Cyndi is an instrumental part of my musical taste (Images by Matthew Rettenmund)
Cyndi gave us four hits and four C&W covers from her new record:
(1) “Funnel of Love” (originally by Wanda Jackson)
(2) “She Bop”
(3) “I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart” (originally by Patsy Montana)
(4) “Walking After Midnight” (originally by Patsy Cline)
(5) “The End of the World” (originally by Skeeter Davis)
(6) “I Drove All Night”
(7) “When You Were Mine” (originally by Prince, covered by Cyndi on her first album)
(8) “Money Changes Everything” (originally by the Brains, covered by Cyndi on her first album)
For her encore, she treated us to one more cover and two of her biggest hits:
(9) “Misty Blue” (originally by Eddy Arnold)
(10) “Time After Time”
(11) “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (with Rosie O'Donnell on the drums)
A moment when she was mine (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Just a fantastic performance from her, and I couldn't believe I'd been unenthused going in. She also said something that relates to my false fatigue while she was honoring Prince. She said:
I hope you appreciate all the artists while you have 'em.
Noted!
Wanna be a cowboy 'n' you can be my cowgirl... (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Her other remarks about Prince were respectful without attempting to make it seem she was a major part of his story (she sang his “When You Were Mine” on She's So Unusual, an excellent cover that she performed live at the show perfectly):
I did one of his songs on my first record, and when he passed I couldn't believe it and it broke my heart—a bright light went out ... Life is short. But he was funny, and he was smart as a whip ... he was quirky—but I loved him.
Cyndi joked about Madonna's English accent but quickly said she loved her, and also gushed about being on Sire Records now, a label she had always considered to be so creative, the home of so many punk acts and also Madonna.
Cyndi Lauper is 62 years old, y'all! (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Cyndi loves Madonna and Sire, but there was no love lost on Donald Trump when Rosie O'Donnell took the stage for what amounted to a quickie cover while Boy George and his band prepped behind the curtain. Awkwardly, George's voice and other distracting noises were coming through on the monitors, so Rosie kept getting interrupted and eventually just had to shout over it all—glad it was her and not, say, Mindy Kaling.
Rosie's set trumped anything The Donald could ever say. (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Rosie used her brief time onstage to lambaste Donald Trump. Though she declared the Beacon a Trump-free zone, that wasn't quite true—it was more like an anti-Trump zone, and rightfully so:
